Posted on 01/09/2011 7:08:16 PM PST by freespirited
On the day of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ shooting, liberals went on the offensive, suggesting that overheated conservative rhetoric contributed to the Arizona attack.
On Sunday, conservatives pushed back – arguing that attempts to politicize the event were unfair, crass and therefore likely to backfire.
“It should not be, but the media, under the guise of ‘a full exposition’ of the evil in Arizona, is back to subtly and not so subtly pinning the blame for the attempted assassination of the congresswoman and the related shootings on the tea party movement, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, me, you, and everyone right of center,” wrote Erick Erickson, managing editor of RedState.com.
“Let’s be crystal clear: this is the supposedly objective news media doing this, not the openly, partisan left, though it is fueling the media witch hunt. And from what we now know, it is not just media malpractice, but a lie.”
Other conservatives said the criticism reeks of hypocrisy. “Keith Olbermann rants regularly about ‘fascists’ taking over the country, and each day for years has named one or more conservatives ‘the worst person in the world.’ Other liberal talk hosts are scarcely more restrained,” said law professor Brad Smith, a former FEC chairman, in POLITICO’s Arena.
“The comments sections of the Daily Kos, Democratic Underground, and other lefty sites are full of the most vile comments and death wishes for Republicans on a regular basis,” Smith added.
New Jersey Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll (R) also voiced anger at Olbermann’s Saturday night comments, which laid at least some blame for the Arizona carnage on Palin, Beck and other prominent conservatives.
“Olbermann does more to coarsen the political rhetoric than virtually anyone else,” Carroll said. “For him, of all people, to urge a toning down of political rhetoric represents the very definition of chutzpah.”
Within hours of the Tucson shooting, prominent liberals had begun tying the event to the violent rhetoric bandied about by conservative media figures like Beck and Limbaugh. And in part because Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat, made similar criticisms about the “vitriol” on radio and TV in his discussion of the attack, the mainstream media also was filled with questions about the role that the tone of the day’s political discourse played in possibly motivating the alleged killer.
The anti-government language of the YouTube clips that the suspected shooter, Jared Loughner, had uploaded had drawn early connections to the tea party, but no evidence surfaced suggesting that Loughner was a fan or supporter of the tea party, Palin, Beck or any of the other media figures named in some liberal critiques.
The lack of any known connection between Loughner and Palin or the tea party prompted The Washington Examiner’s Byron York to accuse CNN and other media organizations of jumping to conclusions after congressional reporter Jessica Yellin told Wolf Blitzer that “clearly this is a moment to talk about our political rhetoric.”
Yellin pointed out that Palin had released a statement of condolence for Giffords and the other victims of the shooting and their families, but York objected to the notion that a discussion about political vitriol was fair game at that time, when the mainstream media went to great lengths to avoid jumping to conclusions about the reasons behind the Ft. Hood shooting in November 2009.
“Indeed, there is no ‘overt’ or any other sort of connection between Loughner and Palin,” York wrote. “If such evidence came to light, it would certainly be news. But without that evidence, and after a brief caveat, the CNN group went back to discussing the theory that Loughner acted out of rage inspired by Palin and other Republicans. Conclusions were jumped to all around.”
The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg criticized “those who immediately shoe-horned these awful crimes into their ideological prism,” and added: “There have been some truly disgusting displays of opportunism out there.”
Olbermann, New York Times’ columnist Paul Krugman and Joe Klein all pointed to Glenn Beck as a purveyor of the kind of violent rhetoric and conspiracy theories that might push a disturbed person over the edge. Beck was silent Sunday, but his website, The Blaze, was filled with examples of liberals politicizing the shooting.
The site links to Olbermann’s special comment, in which he said Beck “obsesses, nearly as strangely as this Mr. Loughner did, about gold and debt;” and to Krugman’s blog post in which he cites Beck and says “violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate.”
Taken together, these clips form the foundation of what could be a strong counterpunch from Beck on his radio and television shows on Monday.
Beck has been accused before of inciting people to violence, a charge that he has always denied. Last month, to illustrate the absurdity of these claims, he discussed the Florida school board shooting, noting with mock glee that the shooter had links to Media Matters, a frequent Beck critic, on his Facebook page.
“Let me make this very clear,” Beck said. “Media Matters did not try to go in and shoot the school board. It was the crazy nut job that did it. Period. Nobody’s responsible for making anybody go do anything violent except crazy people who decide that violence is the answer.”
Conservative firebrand Andrew Breitbart has already begun to throw the left’s attempts to tie the shooting to the right back at them.
“Not since fake N-Word hurled at Reps Carson/Lewis has an anti-Tea Party strategy blown up in left’s face so Yosemite Sam-like,” tweeted Breitbart, referring to Rep. Andre Carson and Rep. John Lewis’s claims that racial slurs were hurled at them during a tea party event.
Although the episode was widely reported, no video or audio evidence ever surfaced to prove the claims, and the lack of evidence has remained one of the right’s favorite examples of the left’s attempts to smear them as racist.
In a post titled “Breaking: Democrats Plotted to Blame Tea Party for Slaughter,” Jim Hoft, a blogger on Breitbart’s Big Government website, picks up a quote that an anonymous Democratic operative gave to POLITICO as evidence of what he believes is a similarly orchestrated smear.
“They need to deftly pin this on the tea partiers,” said the Democrat. “Just like the Clinton White House deftly pinned the Oklahoma City bombing on the militia and anti-government people.”
Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, suggested the left has a “sad” history of politicizing violence.
“When John F. Kennedy was killed by a supporter of the Soviet Union and Cuba – Lee Harvey Oswald – the establishment left announced that conservatism in Dallas was to blame. A communist kills, conservative America is to blame,” Norquist said.
“Now we have a 22-year-old with no discernible politics (one hint, the “Communist Manifesto” cited approvingly on his website)….and Keith Olbermann is joined by the Democrat Sheriff Clarence Dupnik from Southern Arizona who both blame conservatives. Violence is bad. Liberal Democrats blaming violence on conservatives is so old and anticipated it is now a cliche.”
And Fran Wendelboe, a Republican New Hampshire state representative until December 2010, knocked the idea put forward among liberal commentators that stricter gun control measures would have prevented the Arizona tragedy.
“I hope that this act of a deranged individual does not open the door to finger-pointing against imagined causes,” Wendelboe said. “As a thirty-plus year concealed carry license holder, I accept a deep responsibility to be always ready and vigilant when armed to protect the public from such attacks. As the saying goes, firearms don’t kill people, it is the person pulling the trigger who kill people. Using acts such as these to try to limit the possession/use of firearms of honest citizens will make America a much LESS safe place to live.”
The news channels are as insane as the perp, except they use cameras and microphones instead of a gun.
bfl
I’m sick of all the media and any politician that utilizes this tragedy to further their own agenda. Not buying into it anymore and that includes FOX.
Citizens have died and others are fighting for their lives. For the love of God, a nine year old girl is dead. Shame on the media.
Shame on any politician who utilizes this to further any agenda. And shame on us for buying into it. No more. We spoke at the midterms. We need to speak again, loud and clear, about how abhorrent the media and government’s behavior has become.
The shooter was mentally ill. This was a tragedy. We need to pray and pull together. The decent people will do just that.
An altogether solid exercise. You even worked Nixon into the cabal -- earning you an "A" grade in Advanced Conspiracy Theory.
That's right. That's what I remember and I've been livid ever since about how they got away with it and more.
The posted article says “When John F. Kennedy was killed by a supporter of the Soviet Union and Cuba – Lee Harvey Oswald – the establishment left announced that conservatism in Dallas was to blame. A communist kills, conservative America is to blame.”
The fact is the Left used lies and mau-mauing tactics to rail against the entire emerging modern conservative movement. They used the FCC "Fairness Doctrine" to file complaints threatening radio station owners' licenses and shut down conservative talk. That lasted until President Reagan freed broadcasting in 1987.
Modern talk radio started, our inalienable right to free speech was unfettered -- and this time we will not permit the Left to destroy our right to free speech. No matter the cost.
ping
My ideas about the Nixon presidency refect the hard cold facts.
The recent Fox News documentary about the conservative movement noted that conservatives did not get what they wanted from Nixon’s presidency that they supported.
When conservatives blasted Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s foreign policy in the documentary,
I was a groupie of sorts in the 70’s for the not liberal egotistical preacher whose radio station was ordered off the air by Nixon’s FCC using the Fairness Doctrine.
The preacher was on Nixon’s “enemies list” along with the lefties and long hairs.
Dr. Carl McIntire was leading protest marches of hundreds of thousands of people wanting to win the war in Vietnam instead of cutting a peace deal like Nixon and Kissinger did.
Heck, this preacher got a letter of apology from the man who was White House counsel for Nixon, Charles Colson. Colson wrote the letter from prison after his conversion to Christianity.
The GOP insiders have been hustling conservatives with rhetoric for years, but not delivering with consevative action from winning wars (Vietnam to Afghanistan) to cutting spending and the national debt.
I laugh sometimes realizing that while CNN was dubbed the “Clinton News Network” perhaps the Fox News Channel should be dubbed “Nixon’s Revenge.”
It is the Nixonian assualt on the liberal media all over again with the purpose of hustling conservatives into a RINO tent.
Great article. And it’s from Politico? Wow...
I guess your cable company never carried National Empowerment Television. I really miss it.
Completing the incomplete sentence in my post,
“When conservatives blasted Nixon and Henry Kissinger’s foreign policy in the documentary, note that Kissinger was interviewed to defend it.”
Henry the K is a frequent guest on FNC as well. Kissinger was the foreign policy advisor for the uberliberal uberRINO Nelson Rockefeller before joining with Nixon.
My remark was aimed at your alleging FNC is an elaborate media honey-trap diabolically designed to attract and enlist conservatives in the RINO cause.
Myself, I believe FNC is operated for the purpose of making a profit.
Truthfully, I get the majority of my news from the internet. I come here everyday to find out what is happening in the world. I trust this site more then TV because I know that journalism is dead and I Really can’t trust anything that I hear anymore.
This is why this whole thing is going to slide off conservatives like a fried egg off a new teflon pan. That plus any doofus can see the facts are on our side. Our guys are going to fire back tomorrow -- loaded for bear knowing that he's a 9/11 truther, an atheist, and all the other things that have emerged since the story broke and the left jumped the gun -- and that'll basically be the end of it. Business as usual by the end of the week.
I started shunning my television when all this came down Saturday afternoon.
I got onto FR around 430 Eastern for a few minutes before going out with my family Saturday night just for some sanity.
Everything was slow but I hung in there.
Making a profit is indeed the motive and the Ailes formula from the Nixon years combined with Rupert Murdoch’s formula of sex and conservative economic opinion from his newspapers is all there to create the winning combination.
I guess not. Why did it fail?
RIGHT ON, Rita!!!
Glenn is the ONLY one out there exposing the TRUTH of what these leftists are REALLY all about. And yes, he uses THEIR own words to do it with.
And he never ceases to denounce violence. Never.
When Leftists commit violence, it is caused by Free Speech ("rhetoric") by Conservatives. If you do not understand that, you need to watch the Shooter's logic videos on youtube.
OT, but not really...Frances Fox Piven and Bertha Lewis say...
“Uncovered: New Calls for the Updated Cloward-Piven Strategy to Overwhelm Americas Financial System from Frances Fox Piven with SEIU and Bertha Lewis Coordination”
Cause chaos and mistrust...they are doing it right.
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